ARTICLES ABOUT MEXICO BY DATE - PAGE 2

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico's Transport and Communications Ministry said on Tuesday that a proposal by billionaire Carlos Slim's America Movil to cut its share of Mexico's telecommunications market below 50 percent could improve competition in the industry. "The Transport and Communications Ministry declares that this decision could transform competition in the telecommunications sector with improved quality and better prices for services to end users," it said in a statement.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Billionaire Carlos Slim's America Movil AMXL.MX said on Tuesday it is ready to divest assets in an unprecedented step to cut its market share in Mexican telecoms below 50 percent and escape the burden of tougher regulations. The company, which controls some 70 percent of Mexico's mobile market and 80 percent of the fixed line business, said in a statement its board had decided to sell assets to another company that could boost investment in the sector. America Movil, Latin America's biggest telecoms company, did not specify which assets it could get rid of, and a spokesman said it was still open as to what and to whom it could sell.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico's lower house of Congress gave general approval on Tuesday to legislation that aims to rein in telecoms tycoon Carlos Slim and broadcaster Televisa to encourage more competition in the phone and TV markets. The approval was a victory for President Enrique Pena Nieto, who has faced political opposition and a sluggish economy this year after he pushed a series of reforms through Congress in 2013 that were designed to spur faster growth in Mexico. Slim was reacting to the bill even as it passed.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican police have detained a man who allegedly murdered four children and a woman in a small town in the center of the country, authorites said on Saturday, as statistics show a marked increased in the number of women being murdered. The state attorney's office in the town of San Luis Potosi said Filiberto Hernandez, 43, was detained on Thursday and confessed to five murders between 2010 and 2013. The office said he also raped his victims. The crimes took place in Tamuin, a town of 16,000 southeast of San Luis Potosi, where Hernandez was a karate teacher.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Tropical Storm Fausto formed far off the west coast of Mexico on Monday, but it posed no threat to land and the storm was projected to move farther out to sea, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. Fausto was located 1,145 miles (1,840 km) southwest of the southern tip of the Baja peninsula with maximum sustained winds of 40 miles per hour (65 kilometers per hour) and the storm was moving west at 13 mph (20 km/h), the NHC said. Mexico has no major oil installations on its Pacific coast and the NHC projected Fausto would continue moving to the west before turning to the west-northwest on Wednesday.

GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) - A strong earthquake shook the border between Guatemala and Mexico on Monday, killing at least three people, including a newborn boy, damaging dozens of buildings and triggering landslides. Much of the damage from the 6.9-magnitude quake was reported in the Guatemalan border region of San Marcos, where it downed power lines, cracked buildings and triggered landslides that blocked roads. Guatemalan President Otto Perez said the baby died when a hospital ceiling collapsed on him in San Marcos, an area hit hard by quakes in recent years.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Thieves in central Mexico on Thursday stole a pick-up truck carrying dangerous radioactive material, authorities said. The radioactive load - iridium 192 - was normally used in industrial radiography, Mexico's interior ministry said in a statement. The material was housed in a specialized container, and would only pose a health risk if the housing was tampered with, the statement said. Late last year, thieves made off with a truck containing dangerous radioactive medical material that the United Nations said could provide an ingredient for a "dirty bomb.

SAO PAULO, Brazil -- It's a curse. There's no other way to explain it. In six consecutive World Cup tournaments, Mexico has made it to the second round. But it has never gone further. Sunday that streak was only minutes away from ending when the Netherlands struck for goals by Wesley Sneijder in the 88th minute and Klaas Jan Huntelaar on a penalty kick four minutes into stoppage time to send Mexico home early again. "It isn't easy to go out this way, the way this match went," goalkeeper Guillermo Ochoa said.

PORTO ALEGRE Brazil (Reuters) - Netherlands, who along with Colombia have lit up the World Cup in Brazil, face a tough test of their tournament credentials when they take on Mexico in the last 16 in Fortaleza on Sunday. Surprise Group D winners Costa Rica meet Greece in Recife in the day's second match with the winners moving on to play the Dutch or Mexico. Finalists in 1974, 1978 and 2010 but never champions, Netherlands powered their way to three wins in the group stage, with strikers Robin Van Persie and Arjen Robben in outstanding form.

A 5.2-magnitude earthquake near the border of Arizona and New Mexico rattled a significant swath of the U.S. Southwest late Saturday but caused no major damage or injuries, the United States Geological Survey said. The earthquake was centered about 31 miles northwest of the city of Lordsburg, N.M., and could be felt some 150 miles west in the city of Tucson, Ariz., and 300 miles east in Roswell, N.M., the USGS and local media reported. The quake hit at 9.59 p.m. local time at a depth of about 3 miles and was followed by two small aftershocks, the USGS said.